Unpacked Content
Scientific and Engineering Practices
Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information
Crosscutting Concepts
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
Knowledge
Students know:
- The study of the stars' light spectra and brightness is used to identify compositional elements of stars, their movements, and their distances from Earth.
- Nuclear fusion within stars produces all atomic nuclei lighter than and including iron, and the process releases electromagnetic energy (other than hydrogen and helium).
- Heavier elements are produced when certain massive stars achieve a supernova stage and explode.
Skills
Students are able to:
- Communicate scientific information (using oral, graphical, textual, or mathematical formats) and cite origin as appropriate.
Understanding
Students understand that:
- In nuclear processes, atoms are not conserved, but the total number of protons plus neutrons is conserved.
Vocabulary
- Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
- temperature
- luminosity
- planetary nebula
- main sequence
- red giant
- white dwarf
- neutron star
- black hole
- event horizon
- blackbody curve
- Stefan-Boltzmann Law
- Wien's Law
- emission spectrum
- absorption spectrum
- continuous spectrum
- classification
- nuclear fusion
- Balmer series for Hydrogen
